Marketing on the iPhone bandwagon

Posted on July 8th, 2009

Everyone is doing it – jumping on the iPhone app* bandwagon which has been experiencing a goldrush for the last few months with success stories of individuals making fortunes from cheaply developed software and games.

(* iPhone apps are custom written applications and software made available for free or a fee on Apples iPhone)

OK so what?

Well, to date, there have been over a million iPhones sold in UK and 10 million sold worldwide in 2008 alone. These have been predominantly sold to Highly Engaged, Upper-Income Media Consumers and in the UK 75 percent of iPhone users are males, mostly between the ages of 18-44.

For any brand looking to get in front of this demographic the iPhone represents a known path direct to information hungry users who are actively looking for content to consume.

Even an application that is considered a commercial failure can achieve 220,000 downloads in the first two weeks. It is worth noting these are customers that are open and ready to receive your message having already invested time and effort into downloading your branded app!

Brands have the advantage!

Free downloads have a huge advantage over paid applications, 7 and a half times the advantage actually. (see slide 22)

This means that a developer trying to make money from their games will find it hard to compete with a download sponsored by a company that’s able to push it’s software out for free without having to try and recoup it’s costs (either through up-front charges or in game advertising).

Exposure and coverage can all be tracked in detail to measure and report on the success of a campaign which has a long life cycle at no additional ongoing cost!

End thoughts.

As with any new “hip” technology expect Marketing agencies to begin taking notice over the next few months and a year from now the iPhone App store will become saturated with simple yet mostly uninspiring copycat games with a logo slapped on here and there.

So yes the bandwagon is rolling, but there is still time to jump aboard and make your brand stand out to a large audience on the iPhone.

In a follow up post I’ll discuss the types of game best suited to iPhone marketing and how to insert your brand message effectively but unobtrusively.